a simple yarn

Last year, about this time, Husband-Will asked me what I wanted for my birthday. ‘A trip,’ I said, ‘…to London…to check out the yarn shops.’  So Holly and I were off to London. And now that the precedent is set…

Having just returned from a weekend fibre field trip with ‘the Five’, I’m not sure how to categorise us…knitting travelers or traveling knitters? Whatever the emphasis, it was easy to spot that we were all knitting bloggers! (Or is that blogging knitters?)

Day One
We unanimously elected Isobel as our officier commandant, affectionately known as ‘The General.’ Guess she was voted in as she’s a native Brit and can speak the language. After a typically harrowing taxi ride to the hotel, we, in deference to the Ryder Cup golf championship (played in Ireland this year), were billeted with Europeans in one room, Americans in the other. I’m thinking that for this round, the Americans won as our room didn’t have an ambient temperature of a convection oven, nor did our corridor smell of a herd of young, hormonal teenage boys.

Favourite Part of the Day:  Dinner at the Japanese restaurant. I should say, dinner and a show. Dinner…for me, vegetables tempura and chicken teriyaki. Yum!

See the cool, artsy, highly stylized food pictures? Well, I have found, eating with four other bloggers, that as we waited for our dinners to arrive, we used our time wisely by taking interesting pictures of typically uninteresting things. Not sure what the Japanese restaurant staff thought of this. Surely they, more than most cultures, would be sympathetic toward the desire of tourists taking pictures. What they couldn’t understand was that we didn’t want pictures of ourselves, but rather of the food or chopsticks or some other inanimate object.

And the show?

Well, it wasn’t sumo wrestling, but rather the small-Japanese-chef-who-more-probably-was-Korean-and-who-repeatedly-banged-metal-utensils-on-the-metal-work-surface-sending-the-metal-fillings-in-my-teeth-into-sympathetic-vibrations. Couldn’t get a picture of ‘Beni Hana’ as it resulted in a blur. I guess you’ve gotta be quick when you’re brandishing knives at the speed of light.

Day Two
It’s what we came for…fibre. Took an overly crowded British railway train to the exhibition centre, in which the entire state of Rhode Island could have easily fit. A full day of roaming, obtaining, looking, buying, touching, purchasing, admiring, acquiring, chatting, procuring. You get the idea.

My very reasonable amount of purchases including irridescent brown rayon (translation=’slippery’) for a yet to be attempted weaving project
After a full day of hunting and gathering, we dined at Pizza Express. Yes, there was pizza and no, it was not express. But, we cared not, as we had stories to tell and laughs to share.

The Serafina…goat’s cheese, chicken, spinach and mozzarellaDay Three

Exterior view of Selfridges & Co.
Favourite Spot:  Selfridges & Co. Multi-storied, multi-department, uber-cool store. Lovely food hall on the lower floor. Lovely to look at, but more difficult to purchase…um, food. Doors open at 10.30am. Computers turn on at 11am. Which means that if you want to purchase food, you must do so after 11. You could eat it before 11, I suppose, but you couldn’t take it away as they couldn’t take your money and they would frown upon giving it away. Also, you cannot ‘take away’ food at the area designated ‘eat-in’, nor are you allowed to sit there and eat anything that you bought as a ‘take-away.’ Moreso, food you purchase in one area, must be eaten in that area rather than being allowed to infiltrate another eating area.So, in our futile attempt to have breakfast together, Isobel and I ended up having pastries and tea on one area, Sharon and Sara had a bacon sandwich in another area, and Holly had to take her food outside the shop doors. I’d say that’s British bureaucracy at its finest, fairly reminiscent of BBC’s ‘Yes, Minister.’

Back to the Knitting & Stitching Show for the afternoon. Much less hectic pace. Made last-minute-we-can’t-get-this-in-Ireland purchases. Sat and knit until time to go to the airport.

Least Favourite Activity:  standing in never-ending queues amongst the other people in the cattle drive. Surely, the entire population of Rhode Island is in the queue with us with the recurring convection oven theme, except there’s no movement of air. One small carry-on bag they said. No liquids or gels they said (after we had checked our baggage). Worried looks. How small can balls of wool smush up? Three of us made it through. Two of our party were detained. Lip gloss equals contraband now. And ‘one small carry-on’ is a relative term. After shifting, sorting, maneuvering, re-arranging, we all finally made it through, minus one bottle of hand sanitizer and one tube of lip gloss. And as I got into my own handbag for a final purchase of bottled water, I saw in the bottom my otherwise overlooked plethora of liquid hand lotion, hand sanitizer and lip gloss. It’s just lunacy.

Wrap Up
Observant readers will realize that I’ve said little about fibre per se. My knitting goal for this weekend was to attempt many things I had never done before. So, while I was surrounded by so great a cloud of knitters, I decided to finally a) figure out the ‘magic loop’ method of circular knitting with b) a new fingerless gloves pattern which c) incorporates never-attempted-before-cabling along with d) cable cast on and e) I cord bind off. A bit ambitious perhaps, and experienced many fits and starts. But my project is now well under way.

Two Favourite New Comers:  Flying Saucers and Sublime. New sweets for the Kiddies and a new yarn by Sirdar for me. Yummy for both! Yarn is cashmere (5%) extra-fine merino (75%) silk (20%) dk.

And so our time together was truly about fibre (the buying of) and friendship (the making of). So, where will we go next year?

I wonder if Husband-Will realises just what he’s started?